Lonnie is a petite half-orc woman with very pale skin, a compact build, small lower tusks, and thick white hair that falls in uneven waves to her shoulders. Her dark eyes are usually watchful and overbright, as if she is always expecting a door to open behind her. She wears practical, repeatedly mended clothing beneath a weather-stained cloak. Her presence is smaller than people expect from a half-orc, but her emotional intensity fills a room quickly. She smells faintly of singed wool, cold river water, and crushed mint.

Lonnie is sharp-eyed, quiet in crowds, and unexpectedly funny when she feels safe. She hates being physically restrained, dislikes anyone standing behind her, and has a habit of answering simple questions with a question of her own. Though she distrusts institutions and authority, she is remarkably gentle with frightened animals and children. Her courage often arrives after her fear, not before it.

Lonnie was raised in an elven breeding compound where half-orcs were catalogued, housed, and assigned according to ancestry. The elves called it a civilizing project. Lonnie knew it as a place of locked gates, whitewashed rooms, and polite voices discussing her body as if it were a family tree. Her white hair made her conspicuous, and her small stature made the guards underestimate how fiercely she listened. She learned to survive by memorizing schedules, lifting keys, and pretending that obedience was the same thing as surrender. On the day she was informed that she would soon be required to bear children with an elven sire, terror broke through the careful wall she had built inside herself. Fire erupted from her hands and tore through the compound wall. Lonnie fled through the opening, believing she had killed the assigned sire in the blast. She later learned only through rumor that he survived, badly frightened and badly burned, which means he may still be searching for her. With no control over her innate fire and no trust in herself, Lonnie sought the river shrines of Undine, then the frozen sanctuaries devoted to her daughter Shiva. There she accepted a pact with the ice goddess, trading future service for a way to bind the flames inside her beneath frost. She now travels under an assumed name, stealing when necessary, helping other fugitives whenever possible, and dreading the day her fire breaks free again.